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authorStan Shebs <shebs@codesourcery.com>1999-04-16 01:34:07 +0000
committerStan Shebs <shebs@codesourcery.com>1999-04-16 01:34:07 +0000
commit071ea11e85eb9d529cc5eb3d35f6247466a21b99 (patch)
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parent1730ec6b1848f0f32154277f788fb29f88d8475b (diff)
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-If you find inaccuracies in this list, please send mail to
-bug-gdb@prep.ai.mit.edu. If you would like to work on any of these,
-you should consider sending mail to the same address, to find out
-whether anyone else is working on it.
-
-General To Do List
-------------------
-
-This list is probably not up to date, and opinions vary about the
-importance or even desirability of some of the items.
-
-Add an "info bfd" command that displays supported object formats,
-similarly to objdump -i.
-
-START_INFERIOR_TRAPS_EXPECTED need never be defined to 2, since that
-is its default value. Clean this up.
-
-It should be possible to use symbols from shared libraries before we know
-exactly where the libraries will be loaded. E.g. "b perror" before running
-the program. This could maybe be done as an extension of the "breakpoint
-re-evaluation" after new symbols are loaded.
-
-Make single_step() insert and remove breakpoints in one operation.
-
-Speed up single stepping by avoiding extraneous ptrace calls.
-
-Speed up single stepping by not inserting and removing breakpoints
-each time the inferior starts and stops.
-
-Breakpoints should not be inserted and deleted all the time. Only the
-one(s) there should be removed when we have to step over one. Support
-breakpoints that don't have to be removed to step over them.
-
-Update gdbint.texinfo to include doc on the directory structure and
-the various tricks of building gdb.
-
-Do a tutorial in gdb.texinfo on how to do simple things in gdb.
-E.g. how to set a breakpoint that just prints something and continues.
-How to break on aborts. Etc.
-
-Provide "voodoo" debugging of core files. This creates a zombie
-process as a child of the debugger, and loads it up with the data,
-stack, and regs of the core file. This allows you to call functions
-in the executable, to manipulate the data in the core file.
-
-GDB reopens the source file on every line, as you "next" through it.
-
-Referencing the vtbl member of a struct doesn't work. It prints OK
-if you print the struct, but it gets 0 if you try to deref it.
-
-Persistent command history: A feature where you could save off a list
-of the commands you did, so you can edit it into something that will bring
-the target to the same place every time you source it.
-This would also be useful for automated fast watchpointing; if you go
-past the place where it watchpoints, you just start it over again and
-do it more carefully.
-
-Deal with the SunOS 4.0 and 4.1.1 ptrace bug that loses the registers if
-the stack is paged out.
-
-Finish the C++ exception handling stub routines. Lint points them out
-as unused statics functions.
-
-Perhaps "i source" should take an argument like that of "list".
-
-See if core-aout.c's fetch_core_registers can be used on more machines.
-E.g. MIPS (mips-xdep.c).
-
-unpack_double() does not handle IEEE float on the target unless the host
-is also IEEE. Death on a vax.
-
-Set up interface between GDB and INFO so that you can hop into interactive
-INFO and back out again. When running under Emacs, should use Emacs
-info, else fork the info program. Installation of GDB should install
-its texinfo files into the info tree automagically, including the readline
-texinfo files.
-
-"help address" ought to find the "help set print address" entry.
-
-Remove the VTBL internal guts from printouts of C++ structs, unless
-vtblprint is set.
-
-Remove "at 0xnnnn" from the "b foo" response, if `print address off' and if
-it matches the source line indicated.
-
-The prompt at end of screen should accept space as well as CR.
-
-Check STORE_RETURN_VALUE on all architectures. Check near it in tm-sparc.h
-for other bogosities.
-
-Check for storage leaks in GDB, I'm sure there are a lot!
-
-vtblprint of a vtbl should demangle the names it's printing.
-
-Backtrace should point out what the currently selected frame is, in
-its display, perhaps showing "@3 foo (bar, ...)" or ">3 foo (bar,
-...)" rather than "#3 foo (bar, ...)".
-
-"i program" should work for core files, and display more info, like what
-actually caused it to die.
-
-"x/10i" should shorten the long name, if any, on subsequent lines.
-
-Check through the code for FIXME comments and fix them. dbxread.c,
-blockframe.c, and plenty more. (I count 634 as of 940621 - sts)
-
-"next" over a function that longjumps, never stops until next time you happen
-to get to that spot by accident. E.g. "n" over execute_command which has
-an error.
-
-"set zeroprint off", don't bother printing members of structs which
-are entirely zero. Useful for those big structs with few useful
-members.
-
-GDB does four ioctl's for every command, probably switching terminal modes
-to/from inferior or for readline or something.
-
-terminal_ours versus terminal_inferior: cache state. Switch should be a noop
-if the state is the same, too.
-
-ptype $i6 = void??!
-
-Clean up invalid_float handling so gdb doesn't coredump when it tries to
-access a NaN. While this might work on SPARC, other machines are not
-configured right.
-
-"b value_at ; commands ; continue ; end" stops EVERY OTHER TIME!
-Then once you enter a command, it does the command, runs two more
-times, and then stops again! Bizarre... (This behaviour has been
-modified, but it is not yet 100% predictable when e.g. the commands
-call functions in the child, and while there, the child is interrupted
-with a signal, or hits a breakpoint.)
-
-help completion, help history should work.
-
-Check that we can handle stack trace through varargs AND alloca in same
-function, on 29K.
-
-wait_for_inferior loops forever if wait() gives it an error.
-
-"i frame" shows wrong "arglist at" location, doesn't show where the args
-should be found, only their actual values.
-
-There should be a way for "set" commands to validate the new setting
-before it takes effect.
-
-A mess of floating point opcodes are missing from sparc-opcode.h.
-Also, a little program should test the table for bits that are
-overspecified or underspecified. E.g. if the must-be-ones bits
-and the must-be-zeroes bits leave some fields unexamined, and the format
-string leaves them unprinted, then point this out. If multiple
-non-alias patterns match, point this out too. Finally, there should
-be a sparc-optest.s file that tries each pattern out. This file
-should end up coming back the same (modulo transformation comments)
-if fed to "gas" then the .o is fed to gdb for disassembly.
-
-Eliminate all the core_file_command's in all the xdep files.
-Eliminate separate declarations of registers[] everywhere.
-
-"ena d" is ambiguous, why? "ena delete" seems to think it is a command!
-
-Perhaps move the tdep, xdep, and nat files, into the config
-subdirectories. If not, at least straighten out their names so that
-they all start with the machine name.
-
-inferior_status should include stop_print_frame. It won't need to be
-reset in wait_for_inferior after bpstat_stop_status call, then.
-
-i line VAR produces "Line number not known for symbol ``var''.". I
-thought we were stashing that info now!
-
-We should be able to write to random files at hex offsets like adb.
-
-Make "target xxx" command interruptible.
-
-Handle add_file with separate text, data, and bss addresses. Maybe
-handle separate addresses for each segment in the object file?
-
-Handle free_named_symtab to cope with multiply-loaded object files
-in a dynamic linking environment. Should remember the last copy loaded,
-but not get too snowed if it finds references to the older copy.
-
-Generalize and Standardize the RPC interface to a target program,
-improve it beyond the "ptrace" interface, and see if it can become a
-standard for remote debugging. (This is talking about the vxworks
-interface. Seems unlikely to me that there will be "a standard" for
-remote debugging anytime soon --kingdon, 8 Nov 1994).
-
-Remove all references to:
- text_offset
- data_offset
- text_data_start
- text_end
- exec_data_offset
- ...
-now that we have BFD. All remaining are in machine dependent files.
-
-When quitting with a running program, if a core file was previously
-examined, you get "Couldn't read float regs from core file"...if
-indeed it can't. generic_mourn_inferior...
-
-Have remote targets give a warning on a signal argument to
-target_resume. Or better yet, extend the protocols so that it works
-like it does on the Unix-like systems.
-
-Sort help and info output.
-
-Re-organize help categories into things that tend to fit on a screen
-and hang together.
-
-renote-nindy.c handles interrupts poorly; it error()s out of badly
-chosen places, e.g. leaving current_frame zero, which causes core dumps
-on the next command.
-
-Add in commands like ADB's for searching for patterns, etc. We should
-be able to examine and patch raw unsymboled binaries as well in gdb as
-we can in adb. (E.g. increase the timeout in /bin/login without source).
-
-Those xdep files that call register_addr without defining it are
-probably simply broken. When reconfiguring this part of gdb, I could
-only make guesses about how to redo some of those files, and I
-probably guessed wrong, or left them "for later" when I have a
-machine that can attempt to build them.
-
-When doing "step" or "next", if a few lines of source are skipped between
-the previous line and the current one, print those lines, not just the
-last line of a multiline statement.
-
-When searching for C++ superclasses in value_cast in valops.c, we must
-not search the "fields", only the "superclasses". There might be a
-struct with a field name that matches the superclass name. This can
-happen when the struct was defined before the superclass (before the
-name became a typedef).
-
-Handling of "&" address-of operator needs some serious overhaul
-for ANSI C and consistency on arrays and functions.
- For "float point[15];":
-ptype &point[4] ==> Attempt to take address of non-lvalue.
- For "char *malloc();":
-ptype malloc ==> "char *()"; should be same as
-ptype &malloc ==> "char *(*)()"
-call printf ("%x\n", malloc) ==> weird value, should be same as
-call printf ("%x\n", &malloc) ==> correct value
-
-Fix dbxread.c symbol reading in the presence of interrupts. It
-currently leaves a cleanup to blow away the entire symbol table when a
-QUIT occurs. (What's wrong with that? -kingdon, 28 Oct 1993).
-
-Mipsread.c reads include files depth-first, because the dependencies
-in the psymtabs are way too inclusive (it seems to me). Figure out what
-really depends on what, to avoid recursing 20 or 30 times while reading
-real symtabs.
-
-value_add() should be subtracting the lower bound of arrays, if known,
-and possibly checking against the upper bound for error reporting.
-
-mipsread.c symbol table allocation and deallocation should be checked.
-My suspicion is that it's full of memory leaks.
-
-SunOS should have a target_lookup_symbol() for common'd things allocated
-by the shared library linker ld.so.
-
-When listing source lines, check for a preceding \n, to verify that
-the file hasn't changed out from under us.
-
-When listing source lines, eat leading whitespace corresponding to the
-line-number prefix we print. This avoids long lines wrapping.
-
-mipsread.c needs to check for old symtabs and psymtabs for the same
-files, the way it happens for dbxread.c and coffread.c, for VxWorks
-incremental symbol table reloading.
-
-Get all the remote systems (where the protocol allows it) to be able to
-stop the remote system when the GDB user types ^C (like remote.c
-does). For ebmon, use ^Ak.
-
-Possible feature: A version of the "disassemble" command which shows
-both source and assembly code ("set symbol-filename on" is a partial
-solution).
-
-investigate "x/s 0" (right now stops early) (I think maybe GDB is
-using a 0 address for bad purposes internally).
-
-Make "info path" and path_command work again (but independent of the
-environment either of gdb or that we'll pass to the inferior).
-
-Make GDB understand the GCC feature for putting octal constants in
-enums. Make it so overflow on an enum constant does not error_type
-the whole type. Allow arbitrarily large enums with type attributes.
-Put all this stuff in the testsuite.
-
-Make TYPE_CODE_ERROR with a non-zero TYPE_LENGTH more useful (print
-the value in hex; process type attributes). Add this to the
-testsuite. This way future compilers can add new types and old
-versions of GDB can do something halfway reasonable.
-
-Clean up formatting of "info registers" on MIPS and 88k. See if it
-is possible to do this generically across all target architectures.
-
-GDB gets bfd/corefile.c and gdb/corefile.c confused (this should be easy to
-repeat even with something more recent than GDB 4.9).
-
-Check that unmatched RBRAC doesn't abort().
-
-Fix mdebugread.c:parse_type to do fundamental types right (see
-rs6000_builtin_type in stabsread.c for what "right" is--the point is
-that the debug format fixes the sizes of these things and it shouldn't
-depend on stuff like TARGET_PTR_BIT and so on. For mdebug, there seem
-to be separate bt* codes for 64 bit and 32 bit things, and GDB should
-be aware of that). Also use a switch statement for clarity and speed.
-
-Investigate adding symbols in target_load--some targets do, some
-don't.
-
-Put dirname in psymtabs and change lookup*symtab to use dirname (so
-/foo/bar.c works whether compiled by cc /foo/bar.c, or cd /foo; cc
-bar.c).
-
-Merge xcoffread.c and coffread.c. Use breakpoint_re_set instead of
-fixup_breakpoints.
-
-Fix byte order and int size sins in tm-a29k.h
-(EXTRACT_RETURN_VALUE). Perhaps should reproduce bug and verify fix
-(or perhaps should just fix it...).
-
-Make a watchpoint on a constant expression an error (or warning
-perhaps)
-
-Make a watchpoint which contains a function call an error (it is
-broken now, making it work is probably not worth the effort).
-
-Re-do calls to signal() in remote.c, and inflow.c (set_sigint_trap and
-so on) to be independent of the debugging target, using target_stop to
-stop the inferior. Probably the part which is now handled by
-interrupt_query in remote.c can be done without any new features in
-the debugging target.
-
-New test case based on weird.exp but in which type numbers are not
-renumbered (thus multiply defining a type). This currently causes an
-infinite loop on "p v_comb".
-
-Nuke baseclass_addr.
-
-Nuke USG define.
-
-"source file more recent" loses on re-read
-
-Fix 386 floating point so that floating point registers are real
-registers (but code can deal at run-time if they are missing, like
-mips and 68k). This would clean up "info float" and related stuff.
-
-Look at Solaris bug in interrupt.exp. Can get out of syscall with
-PRSABORT (syscall will return EINTR) but merely doing that leads to a
-"can't read memory" error.
-
-gcc -g -c enummask.c then gdb enummask.o, then "p v". GDB complains
-about not being able to access memory location 0.
-
--------------------- enummask.c
-enum mask
-{
- ANIMAL = 0,
- VEGETABLE = 1,
- MINERAL = 2,
- BASIC_CATEGORY = 3,
-
- WHITE = 0,
- BLUE = 4,
- GREEN = 8,
- BLACK = 0xc,
- COLOR = 0xc,
-
- ALIVE = 0x10,
-
- LARGE = 0x20
-} v;
-
-If try to modify value in file with "set write off" should give
-appropriate error not "cannot access memory at address 0x65e0".
-
-Why do we allow a target to omit standard register names (NO_STD_REGS
-in tm-z8k.h)? I thought the standard register names were supposed to
-be just that, standard.
-
-Make DEBUG_EXPRESSIONS a maintenance command, dependent on
-MAINTENANCE_COMMANDS.
-
-Allow core file without exec file on RS/6000.
-
-Make sure "shell" with no arguments works right on DOS.
-
-Make gdb.ini (as well as .gdbinit) be checked on all platforms, so
-the same directory can be NFS-mounted on unix or DOS, and work the
-same way.
-
-cd ~/tmp/<M-?> causes infinite loop (where ~/tmp is a directory).
-
-Get SECT_OFF_TEXT stuff out of objfile_relocate (might be needed to
-get RS/6000 to work right, might not be immediately relevant).
-
-Clean up add_toc_to_loadinfo
-
-Think about attached processes and sharing terminal.
-
-John sez in reference to ignoring errors from tcsegpgrp if attach_flag:
-set_tty_state should not have any trouble with attached processes.
-Instead, the tty handling should leave the pgrp of the tty alone when
-attaching to processes (perhaps pass terminal_init_inferior a flag
-saying whether we're attaching).
-
-PAGE_SIZE redefined warnings on AIX. Probably should be using
-BFD_PAGE_SIZE throughout BFD.
-
-Rewrite proceed, wait_for_inferior, and normal_stop to clean them up.
-Suggestions:
-
- 1) Make each test in wait_for_inferior a seperate subroutine
- call.
- 2) Combine wait_for_inferior and normal_stop to clean up
- communication via global variables.
- 3) See if you can find some way to clean up the global
- variables that are used; possibly group them by data flow
- and information content?
-
-Work out some kind of way to allow running the inferior to be done as
-a sub-execution of, eg. breakpoint command lists. Currently running
-the inferior interupts any command list execution. This would require
-some rewriting of wait_for_inferior & friends, and hence should
-probably be done in concert with the above.
-
-Add function arguments to gdb user defined functions.
-
-Add convenience variables that refer to exec file, symbol file,
-selected frame source file, selected frame function, selected frame
-line number, etc.
-
-Add a "suspend" subcommand of the "continue" command to suspend gdb
-while continuing execution of the subprocess. Useful when you are
-debugging servers and you want to dodge out and initiate a connection
-to a server running under gdb.
-
-Add stab information to allow reasonable debugging of inline functions
-(possibly they should show up on a stack backtrace? With a note
-indicating that they weren't "real"?).
-
-Modify the naked "until" command to step until past the current source
-line, rather than past the current pc value. This is tricky simply
-because the low level routines have no way of specifying a multi-line
-step range, and there is no way of saying "don't print stuff when we
-stop" from above (otherwise could just call step many times).
-
-Modify the handling of symbols grouped through BINCL/EINCL stabs to
-allocate a partial symtab for each BINCL/EINCL grouping. This will
-seriously decrease the size of inter-psymtab dependencies and hence
-lessen the amount that needs to be read in when a new source file is
-accessed.
-
-Do an "x/i $pc" after each stepi or nexti.
-
-Modify all of the disassemblers to use printf_filtered to get correct
-more filtering.
-
-Modify gdb to work correctly with Pascal.
-
-Add a command for searching memory, a la adb. It specifies size,
-mask, value, start address. ADB searches until it finds it or hits
-an error (or is interrupted).
-
-# Local Variables:
-# mode: text
-# End: